


And I, Infinitesimal Being

by spacetrek



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, i've missed these characters my god, it's been fifty years, unbeta'd and with zero coherent update schedule as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 02:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17910320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacetrek/pseuds/spacetrek
Summary: Ford and his relationship with the stars (and his family) through the years





	1. The Great Starry Void

Ford’s always loved looking at the sky.

 

Nights when everything was just too much, when Pa was angry and the kids at school were mean and the thoughts in his head just wouldn’t _shut up_ he would run outside or climb up to the roof and just sit and look up, away from everything.

 

He likes the sun and moon and clouds, but he _really_ likes the stars.

 

There’s so many of them, but they don’t overwhelm him.They make patterns and shapes that he can pick out and name.He knows all of them like old friends, what they look like and when they appear.He eagerly awaits the return of favorites with the change of the seasons.

 

Stan comes with him, sometimes, to avoid Pa or boredom or just to spend time with him, but Ford knows his brother doesn’t really care so much about the unknown.He tries to explain it once, when they’re small and hopeful and too young to know any better.

 

“See, Stanley?There’s all kinds of stars and constellations, and most of them have never been visited before!Who knows what kind of aliens and creatures live there?”

 

Stan grins.“Ya think they got alien treasure up there?”

 

Ford laughs.His brother doesn’t see the universe the way he does, but that’s okay.That just makes them both special.“Probably!Special star treasure."

 

“Sounds awesome,” Stan says, slinging an arm around Ford’s shoulders.“Maybe you can put a rocket on our boat.”

 

“We could find a whole new constellation!”Ford’s practically giddy with the thought.

 

“Yeah!”Stan punches the air with his free hand.“Constellation Stan!”The arm around Ford’s shoulders turns into a headlock, and their friendly embrace into a protracted tussle.

 

Those are some of the best days of Ford’s life, with his dreams and his brother and the stars.

 

He tries to explain it once more, when they’re older and a little more jaded and not quite as hopeful.

 

“The universe is so big, Stan.We can’t possibly be the only species; there’s bound to be thousands more, and scarcely anyone’s studied it!An entire field of research, barely touched!”He should reign himself in, but he’s too caught up in his excitement.“There’s bound to be all kinds of anomalous places and things out there.”And he does pull himself back from adding _there’s bound to be a place where I fit in._

 

Stan smiles, lopsided.“You’re such a nerd, Poindexter.D’you want another soda?”

 

Ford bites his lip.“No, thank you.”

 

Stan leaves, and Ford thinks.He’s known for a long time that Stan’s interests in adventure are more… practical, than his own.His brother isn’t as prone to humor his long-winded spiels on weirdness as he was when they were children, and that’s okay.They’re growing up, growing apart, and that’s what people do, right?

 

He wishes that he could, just for a moment, see the world the way his brother does, just to understand.How can anyone look at the sky and simply think that it’s _pretty?_ Space is marvelous, incredible, breathtaking.

 

Terrifying.Welcoming.

 

Ford takes a breath, feeling the chill October air burn his lungs.He tips his head back, eyes automatically picking out Andromeda, Pegasus, Pisces.Formations he’s known since he was a child, carefully searching for them with a stained and battered guide to the stars that he pulled out of the bargain bin at the used bookstore.By now it’s muscle memory, meditative, soothing him the same way it always has to find patterns in the vastness of the sky and focus on them and their histories.

 

A push to his shoulder brings him back from his thoughts.

 

“Hey, earth to Ford.You’re not up in space yet; quit actin’ like it.”Stan smiles and takes a drink from his soda.

 

Ford smiles back, instant, automatic. 

 

“Okay.”


	2. Likeness, Image of Mystery

Gravity Falls at night is– something else.

 

It’s fascinating all the time, is mysterious and wild and _strange,_ but at night?

 

It’s magical, in every sense of the word.

 

Ford remembers legends he’s read that claim the earth itself is a sentient being, breath and life and dreams.

 

He didn’t think he believed it, but if the earth was alive anywhere, it would be here.

 

It almost feels like breathing, the rise and fall of the wind and the rustle of the trees.Unconsciously, his own breathing slows, steadies, paces to the rhythm of the night.

 

The lake is mesmerizing, silent and so still Ford can count the stars in its surface, perfect mirrors of the ones in the sky.

 

Twins.

 

He chews his lip and looks up at the sky itself, suddenly uninterested in the lake.

 

The constellations appear at different times here than they had back in New Jersey – it had thrown him, at first, old friends in a new space.But they are old friends, and with one exception, they might be the only friends he has left.

 

Irritated with himself and this unproductive train of thought on such a beautiful night, Ford shakes himself, hard, and decides to keep his head bent over his journal for the rest of his outing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't stick to a consistent writing style and I should just give up that particular ghost now
> 
> this is short (but more or less what I wanted? I think) and the next chapter is nearly written already – I think I might actually have a steady update schedule for this


	3. Felt Myself a Pure Part of the Abyss

_IF ICARUS COULD SEE ME NOW_

 

Icarus might be impressed, truly, at just how far Ford has fallen.

 

The bottomless pit in the woods could be a better metaphor than Icarus.Icarus had plummeted into the sea in fairly short order.Ford has been falling for days (weeks?) with no end in sight.

 

Time feels like the taffy he used to love back in Glass Shard Beach—stretched and gummy and sticking in the back of his throat.He lost pieces of the candy to his brother.He’s losing pieces of time to a demon.

 

Ford rubs at his eye.Dried blood flakes off on his fingers.He wants to laugh.He wants to cry.He doesn’t do either, he can’t do either, he has to get back to work has to do… something.

 

He clutches his journal close as he paces to the next room.He can’t bear to let it out of his sight.It’s full of world-damning information.It’s too dangerous to leave alone. 

 

It’s the only part of himself he’s been able to keep since Bill showed his true colors.

 

He doesn’t dare go down into the basement. 

 

He needs to dismantle the portal, but he can’t go near it; he needs help, but he can’t trust anybody; he needs to sleep, but he can’t sleep.

 

He doesn’t know what to do.It’s driving him mad.

 

No, _no_.It’s not driving him mad.He’s not mad.He is sane and not scared and in control of himself.

 

(Fiddleford babbling after one look into the portal what had he seen what had Bill _done_ –)

 

He pulls himself from his thoughts to find that he’s unconsciously drifted into the kitchen.He scrambles back, away to the other side of the house.

 

_Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t do anything to help Bill and Bill can’t use me if I can’t use myself–_

 

Use.

 

He hates that word, has always hated it.Has always hated the feeling. 

 

_Can I copy your homework?_

 

_Your brother was gonna be our ticket out of this dump!_

 

_C’mon, Sixer, up and at ‘em!No time to sleep in; you gotta get to work on the portal!_

 

Everyone who ever claimed to care about him only wanted to use him.They used him until they didn’t need him anymore and then they betrayed him and left him behind, and that’s fine, because he doesn’t need them either.

 

He’s fine, he _is,_ he’s going to stop Bill and save the world and that will be enough.

 

Maybe that will finally silence the voices in his head, the ones that aren’t Bill, but still hurt.

 

Laughter bubbles up in his skull, and he knows it’s not his.

 

“Leave me alone!”He yells it aloud, just to hear a voice with his ears and not with his mind.It doesn’t matter that it’s hoarse and cracking, just that it’s something else to focus on besides the mockery in his brain.

 

The corner seems like a very inviting place to curl up and just (sleep) sit, rest for awhile, but he can’t sleep, can’t rest, he has to do… something.

 

He doesn’t know what to do.

 

He looks out the window.Through the grimy glass he can make out falling snow, but not much else.Certainly not the stars.

 

_You like the stars, IQ?Stick with me; you’re gonna touch them someday._

 

He turns away from the sky.

 

It’s just another thing that Bill tainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hte hekcin
> 
> I think this is what I was going for?? Daylight savings has me upside down


	4. I Wheeled With the Stars

The universe is every bit as huge and lonely as he’d thought it to be.

His chronometer broke two, three worlds ago, and he hasn’t bothered to replace it.

He doesn’t have the parts, and out here, where it’s just him staring up at a sky so vast it seems to swallow the multiverse whole, seconds and minutes and hours just—aren’t that important.

He’ll get where he’s going, or he won’t.  The universe doesn’t care whether he does or not.

But—

The universe is also even more breathtaking up close.

A hundred different skies in a hundred different dimensions, each with their own astral bodies and constellations.

(He doesn’t stay long in the worlds with no stars, no light.  The darkness always presses a little too hard, a little too close, and he moves on as soon as he can).

He rarely stays long enough to memorize all the patterns and pictures in the sky, and certainly not long enough to know what the locals call them, but he always finds one or two collections of stars that he can find every night.  It makes him feel a little less adrift.

(He’s been to places with no land at all—just empty space in between established dimensions.  In some of them, the mind was the master.  You imagined a path, and you could wind your way through the stars).

He nearly died in one of those places, lost in the vast emptiness of space.

(Out in the middle of a star field, staring out at nothing but flickering specks of light in the void, he felt more at peace than he had in years). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how I feel about this one but here it is nonetheless.
> 
> One more chapter to go!


	5. My Heart Broke Loose On the Wind

He wakes up every morning to a sky he recognizes in a world he doesn’t, and the disconnect itches like an old wound.

He hides away in the basement when he can, but the excitement and pure, uncomplicated affection of two small children pulls him from his work again and again.

Dipper and Mabel are the best thing that’s happened to him in the past thirty years, maybe his entire life, and they more than make up for the distant pain of living in a world that moved on without him.

(When it gets to be too much, when even Dipper’s eager questions and Mabel’s bright happiness can’t stop the cacophony in his mind, he sits on the roof and names the stars, long-disused memory coming to the forefront, until his head is full of Latin and Greek and old sailor legends and he can breathe again).

The old world dies before he’s even gotten used to it, and he wakes up again to a completely new one.

Bill is gone.  Stan was gone too, but he’s coming back, he’s going to be okay.

Ford is safe.  He has a family.  He probably doesn’t deserve them, but they seem to care about him anyway, so all he can do is care for them back as much as he possibly can.

The kids join him on the roof one night before they leave.  Mabel sits on his lap and points up at the sky, saying things like “those stars look like Waddles!”  Dipper is kneeling at his side, a crinkled  _Guide to Constellations_ clutched in his hands, and he’s trying to find the correct names for constellations as fast as Mabel mislabels them.  He’s losing, badly.

Ford just sits quietly, listening to their good-natured bickering and wondering what he did in his life to earn this.

When they quiet down, he starts to talk.  

He tells them about Ursa Major, about Cassiopeia, about Scorpio and Sagittarius.  He smiles and tells them about the Big Dipper, and the stories behind them all.  

He tells them about cold New Jersey nights on a rooftop far away from this one, sitting with his brother and pointing out these same constellations a lifetime ago.

Mabel eventually falls asleep, lulled by the quiet of the night.  Ford holds her carefully, and thinks about picking her up and shaking a drowsy Dipper awake to put them to bed.  He doesn’t.

Stan comes up at some point, looking for them.  He settles beside them, leaving Dipper slumped against Ford’s side, and bumps Ford with his shoulder.

“Tellin’ them your nerd star stories?”  he asks.

“I was, yes.  I forgot how bright they are out here.”

Stan is looking at Mabel with a fond little smile, but then he looks up at Ford.  His expression doesn’t change.

“You mind doing an encore?”

Somehow, incredibly, something settles in Ford at that.  It’s like a weight he’s been carrying for forty-odd years has just… vanished.  

It’s like two kids sitting on a New Jersey rooftop finally going free.

He smiles.

“Not at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually finished this in a timely fashion. It will probably never happen again.
> 
> I don't tend to write a lot of multichapter fics, but I had fun with this! I might try for another, if college lets up.

**Author's Note:**

> I’M ALIVE but only ironically
> 
> I picked a fight with college in a bojangles parking lot two months ago and college has absolutely been wiping the floor with me. I do have chapters 3 and 5 written out, but 2 and 4 are causing me trouble so it might be a while before an update, what with this 3k word paper and 2 concerts coming up. Fingers crossed.
> 
> I got the titles for this from that Pablo Neruda poem “Poetry” because we read it in English class and I needed some small victory against college so I took this and started writing with it


End file.
